Wandering the Water Cycle: Ice Boy by David Ezra Stein

What does an ice cube worry about most?

Ice Boy has a cozy homelife with his parents and siblings in the freezer. Everyone has his or her own cubicle, however compact, but still he wonders what's next.

Mom and Dad say someday each of them will be "chosen," serving to cool a frosty drink, or if they are special enough, to chill a medicinal ice bag. But an epicurean ending, clinking in an iced cocktail, or an altruistic outcome, cooling a cold compress, don't really fire Ice Boy's imagination.

He decides waiting to be "taken" is not cool.

Ice Boy wanted more.

Even though his parents said "Never go outside" and the doctor always said, "Stay out of the sun," Ice Boy went outside.

Ice Boy went to the beach. He rolled right up to the edge of the water and rolled right in.

He feels different already!

"My edges are beginning to blur! " He was ... becoming...Water Boy! "Best day ever!"

Water boy rides the waves up onto the beach and soaks a beach towel. It's hot and he begins to steam! And then he begins to feel light-headed as he starts to rise up and up above the beach.

He was ... becoming.. Vapor Boy!

But then things begin to happen fast. He feels denser and finds himself part of a rapidly forming thunderhead. He rises higher and higher, as below him lightning flashes and thunder rolls. It's freezing up there, and he finds himself quite icy. He's Ice Boy once more, but this time he's round and heavy. And then he's dropping, dropping, down, down... until...

PLINK!

Clink! "Ice Boy! Is that YOU?" said his father. "You're a sight for sore ICE!"

Ice Boy finds himself floating in a fizzy drink with his family, and he has just begun to tell them all about his journey, when the person tosses his left-over ice out on the grassy lawn. His parents are afraid.

"Where will we go?" they lament.

"Let's find out!" said Ice Boy.

David Ezra Stein's little trip through changes in physical states, Ice Boy (Candlewick Press, 2018) is a wry look at the the water cycle, a comic-strip version of that favorite primary science topic that kids will find intriguing. Told in quip-filled speech balloons, Stein's watery stick figures are about as expressive as ice cubes can be, with some punny wordplay that adds to the fun of the whole science lesson, not to mention a slyly comic parable of life's changes. Kirkus Reviews coolly sums it all up: "An allegory for breaking away from the mold, the story doubles as a light lesson on the water cycle."